The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-04-30
AN ANTlsEPTic SWEET.
Something About saccharine, IT'S Virtue
and Its Probable Future.

Something About Saccharine, It's Virtue
and It's Probable Future.
After giving the story of the disccv.
cry of saccharine by German chemist
(Fahlberg) at the Johns Hopkins Uni.
versity in Baltimore, Md, It is said
that while it took long time and much
hard study to learn the philosophy OF
ts production, it has taken eight years
to reduce the manufacture of 1t to a
commercial basis. 1t was formerly
supposed that the physical quality of
sweetness was typified by the carbo-hy-
drates; that is, the sugars and those
starches which, by chemical treatment,
are brought into the group. But Fahl-
berg's discovery does away with this
old standard practically and scientific
cally. 1t is $50 times swccter than the
best cane sugar. equal to unity. What
is more extraordinary, it differs wholly
in principle from the carbohydrate
group-that is, from all other known
sugars-in not being susceptible to fer
mcntation. Every housewife knows
how preserved fruit mildcws, how jam
molds and how yeast ferments and
spoils. All these operations are
the result of the action OF
organisms feeding on the sugar, here
tofore an inseparable feature of all
sweetening processes. But you can
not produce fermentation in saccharine.
To the contrary, it is powerfully pre-
servative--a quality it possesses in COM
mon with all the coal-tar products. or
this the correspondent says he had
some curious illustrations from the
samples Mr.. Salamon had brought with
him from Magdcburg. There were
strawberries, for instance, put up over
year ago. which had never been
cooked and which preserved absolutely
their flavor of the garden. The jam
had been boiled, but with the non-fer-
menting saccharine there was no boil
ing away, no need of skimming. with
which ordinary sugar involves loss OF
ten per cent. 1t is not necessary to
speak of other samples. Every one
can see what the effect must be, in all
these lines of production, of substitu-
ting for ordinary sugars sweetening
power which can not ferment, and which
is strongly preservative. Another novel
and interesting quality of this new prod
, uct is that it is strictly anti-diabetic
1t passes through the system absolutely
untouched. German physicians are
making much of this phase of the
discovery. and there has already
been established an Independent
factory for the manufacture of
anti-diabetic biscuits for the use
of the large class of patients to
whom all sweetening has heretofore
been forbidden. An immense factory,
with the best machinery and appli-
ances, was started in Magdeburg, Ger
many, in February, employing between
two hundred and three hundred work
men, to manufacture saccharne, with Il
capital of 100000. The correspondent
says that 'of course the principal idea
of the Introduction of saccharine, so
far as Americas sugar trade goes, is,
that by combination with glucose, a
sugar can be made which will drive
cane sugar to the wall" He was
shown a sample of sugar, composed of
two parts of saccharine and one thou
sand parts glucose, which seemed to
sight and taste to be good enough
sugar. The correspondent goes on to
speculate upon the new industry and its
effects as follows: ''If combination
with saccharine can make harmless,
non-fermenting, non-crystalizing sugar
out of glucose, at a cost enabling it to
compel with, not to say drive out,
cane sugar then clearly tremendous
and commercial and sectional revolu-
ton will be at hand Buffalo, Peoria
and other centers of the glucose indus
try will have the Louisiana and West
Indian trade and the great refining
works of New York and California at
their mercy. This seems among the
possibilities, to state the case mildly,
and it is surely worth thinking about"
The coal tar to be used in the Magde'
burg factory comes from England,
which country produces many thou
sands of tons of this product of ga:
making.-Ltght, Heat and Pover.
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